by Sylvia Waugh
Albert was dazed. The oddness of meeting these people who were genuinely different from the human race, and not just a variation on size, shape or colour, would not sink in. Soobie, acutely aware of being the blue Mennym, had chosen to sit in the shadows on his father’s left. To Joshua’s right sat Miss Quigley and between Miss Quigley and Vinetta the younger twins shuffled and stared. Albert had Vinetta on his left-hand side and Tulip on his right. Appleby and Pilbeam sat between their grandmother and their silent, cautious brother.
Albert smiled at them all nervously. He stirred his tea and lifted it up to his lips to sip. Nine pairs of eyes watched the cup go up and then down again. Albert looked along the table and his eyes met Joshua’s. The distance was just about enough for his host to look fairly human.
Albert picked up a neat, triangular salmon sandwich. Nine pairs of eyes watched in fascination as it disappeared into his mouth. No one said a word. He lifted his cup again and when he put it down the clatter it made as it met the saucer was the loudest noise in the room.
Albert looked round at them all. Nine pairs of beady eyes stared from cloth faces. Albert found himself focussing on the weave of the cloth, and the perfect stitching of each still pair of lips. The Mennyms were so bewitched by this close-up view of a human being that their dollness was taking them over. The glass eyes glittered.
And the spell . . .
The spell was only broken when the terrified young man at the head of the table fell in a faint to the floor.
“Come on, Albert. Wake up. Nobody’s going to hurt you!” Tulip bent over him and, for the very first time, touched flesh as her hand moved his face from side to side.
The innocent brown eyes opened wide and Albert looked up into Tulip’s crystal gaze. It was as Appleby had foretold (how long ago it seemed!) when she had had them all convinced of the impending visit of the Australian. One look into those crystals that were Tulip’s eyes and Albert was more than half hypnotised. We are people, the eyes said, we are living, we are real. We will accept you. You must accept us. Her strong will supplied him with a set of rules, a modus vivendi essential to both sides.
And it worked. Albert would never fear the Mennyms again. He would not even notice that they were anything other than human. He would still know it with the conscious part of his mind, because the knowledge was necessary to their survival. But the subconscious part would accept the Mennyms as ordinary people, which in essence, of course, they were.
“How do you make food disappear, Mr Pond?” Wimpey asked.
“It’s easy,” said Albert. “Like magic!” He was back on his seat and eating a chocolate digestive biscuit. He smiled at Wimpey and held up the biscuit to show that a segment had really gone. That was how it worked and would always work from then on. The differences between man and doll were openly acknowledged, and dismissed as unimportant.
12
The First Salvo
LETTERS WERE DELIVERED to every household in the Grove the day after Albert Pond’s arrival. The spring of the letterbox rang out sharply in the silent hall. The thick, official envelope landed heavily in the lobby.
Albert was just waking up from a sound sleep in Soobie’s room. The blue Mennym had offered the room on the first floor. It had, after all, been the guest room before Miss Quigley moved in. Soobie had given his old room on the second floor to Miss Quigley so that she need not be on the same landing as Poopie and Wimpey.
“I’ll lie on the settee in the lounge,” he had insisted when the question of where Albert should sleep had been broached.
“It doesn’t seem fair that you should be the one to move again,” Vinetta had protested, but not too strongly. If Soobie did not move, it would be much more trying to move any of the others.
“It’s taking advantage of good nature,” she had said weakly.
“Yes,” Soobie replied with a rare smile, “it is! But I honestly don’t mind. It’ll save me another flight of stairs anyway!” And that was that.
The letter with the Castledean Council’s insignia printed on the back, an ominous-looking green portcullis, was picked up by Vinetta, always the earliest to rise. She felt a bit weary that Monday morning. The day before had been stressful. They had all ultimately found it necessary to go back to their pretends.
Joshua was the first to slip up. He quite unconsciously took out his pipe and pretended to light it and draw on it and coax it along in a very realistic manner.
Albert watched him.
Tulip pursed her lips and tried to signal to Joshua.
Soobie looked on, thought about it, and then made up his mind. After all, Albert was no longer a stranger. He had his odd ways too. He was the first person in over forty years to use the lavatory. The sound of the cistern had been startling.
“We pretend things,” Soobie explained abruptly. “We are learning to accept you as you are. You are learning to accept us as we are. That is another bit of it. We have our pretends, at least some of us do.”
Joshua, totally oblivious, went on contentedly smoking the unlit pipe.
“A pretend pipe is better than the other sort,” Albert said with a smile. “It won’t do anybody any harm.”
In some ways Albert’s visit had been fun. The dishes had been genuinely dirty. It had really been necessary to don washing-up gloves to rinse out the tea things. Albert, being a polite young man, had not liked to mention being hungry at suppertime. It was only in the middle of the night that Vinetta had woken up with a start, her subconscious suddenly realising that the visitor would have to be fed all day and every day. It was a worry!
And now the letter! It was just too much. It was addressed to Joshua. Sir Magnus, in his determination to bamboozle the bureaucrats, had removed himself from the electoral register many years before. Vinetta, as usual, did not bother waiting for her husband to come in from work but tore open the envelope immediately and first skimmed, then scanned, its contents.
They were unspecific as to dates and held out vague offers of compensation and a fingers-crossed series of circumlocutions that meant, when it came down to it, compulsory purchase of property to be demolished.
“Oh dear,” Vinetta sighed. “Oh dear!”
Albert Pond came down the stairs just at that moment. He had on a white sweatshirt asking people to save the whale, and a pair of dark-coloured jeans. The moment she saw him, looking so casual and comfortably at home, Vinetta panicked.
“We’ve run out of cornflakes,” she said desperately. True, there were no cornflakes, but to say they had run out of them implied that they had once had some, which was just not true at all.
“That’s all right,” said Albert. “I’ll just have some toast, if you don’t mind. I never eat much for breakfast.”
That was better. There was still half a loaf left from yesterday.
“The toaster’s on the shelf in the kitchen. Help yourself to as much as you like.”
Vinetta had never used the toaster. It had stood idle for over forty years. She followed Albert into the kitchen and as she filled the kettle to make the tea she watched warily out of the corner of her eye as Albert pushed the plug into the socket and placed two slices of bread in the slots.
“We’ve had a letter,” Vinetta said as they stood waiting for the kettle to boil and the toast to pop, “the one you warned us about.”
She handed it over to him and he began to read it, stopped to butter his toast, sat down at the kitchen table, and finished reading as he ate. Two more slices of toast were in the toaster. He suddenly realised that he was hungry after all.
“You must be hungry,” said Vinetta, approaching the problem as delicately as she could. “I’m a bit worried about that, Albert. If you are to stay with us for any length of time, you will either have to eat out, or show me how to cook your meals. Pretend cooking is not the same,” she finished feebly.
“That’s no problem,” said Albert looking up from the letter. “I’m used to cooking for myself. I’ll get some groceries in today. Have you a fre
ezer?”
“No,” said Vinetta, “but there is a very large pantry and it is always quite cold.”
“No fridge?” queried Albert. When it came to cooking he was definitely a fridge and freezer man!
“Yes!” said Vinetta, happy to remember the white chest under the bench in the corner. “Of course! What am I thinking of? There is a refrigerator with a little freezer compartment. We defrosted it years ago and left it turned off. Tulip said it was a waste running it for nothing. I’ll clean it out today and switch it on again.”
Albert returned to the letter.
Vinetta watched him anxiously, hoping that he would understand the parts she had found difficult, but, above all, hoping that this clever young man would spot some lifesaving loophole.
“It’s obviously in the very early stages,” said Albert, when he reached the end of the third page. “There’ll be months, if not years, to go before anything really happens.”
“But some day something will,” said Vinetta.
“Yes,” said Albert, “I’m afraid so. Still, it does give us time to prepare.”
13
The Purple Foot
THE LETTER WAS given to Sir Magnus. He had just the faintest twinge of the gout again and, for that reason, among a devious variety of others, he decided that the family should hold a conference on Tuesday. They could all have the rest of Monday to think about it.
Albert had been taken to be presented to the head of the family the previous evening. It had been a brief and not altogether happy encounter. Albert, the scholar, junior lecturer at the university, had not read a single one of Sir Magnus Mennym’s articles, not even his account of the Battle of Edgehill.
“There’s such a lot to read,” Albert had said apologetically. “It’s very hard to keep up with it all. I’m not brilliant or anything, just interested. My area of study really ends at 1485 with the Battle of Bosworth Field. The Civil War is too modern, if you see what I mean.”
Small beer, thought Sir Magnus, very small beer.
To make it worse, Albert became fascinated by the purple foot that was clearly cloth and not at all realistic. When it was still, it looked foolish. When it moved, it looked unnatural and frightening. Albert tried looking everywhere else in the room, the curtains, the lampshade, the old man’s mittened hands, his healthy face with its white walrus moustache; but the eyes were drawn back again and again to the purple foot.
“Does it bother you?” Sir Magnus said at last in an ominous growl.
“What?” Albert asked, blushing.
“My foot, lad. You don’t seem to be able to keep your eyes off it. Have you never seen a foot before?”
“Not a purple one,” Albert replied, and then wished he hadn’t said that.
Tulip came in as they were speaking. She covered her husband’s foot with the counterpane. Fixing her crystal gaze on Albert she said, “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day. You’d best be off to bed, Albert. I’ll show you your room.”
Monday was much better. Poopie and Wimpey tried to persuade Albert to play Monopoly with them. When Vinetta rescued him from that close encounter of the board-game kind, he settled down in the lounge and talked happily to Soobie. It didn’t matter at all that Soobie was blue. By the time they had talked for ten minutes, Soobie was just Soobie, Albert was just Albert, and they were well on their way to being friends for life.
Pilbeam and Appleby came down just after mid-day and offered to go with Albert to the supermarket. Vinetta guiltily remembered the vexed question of food.
“Of course,” she said. “You must be starving, Albert. Here, Pilbeam, take twenty pounds and buy some groceries. Albert will tell you what to get.”
Albert looked uncomfortable.
“Honestly, Vinetta,” he said hastily, “I’ll see to it myself. Put your money away. I don’t want to impose on you.”
“Nonsense,” said Tulip. “Take the money, Pilbeam. Do the shopping. Albert is our guest. We don’t allow guests to pay for their own food.”
Albert looked helplessly at Vinetta.
“That’s right,” said Vinetta. “Do as she says. And stop worrying!”
On the way out Albert, Pilbeam and Appleby passed Miss Quigley coming in with Googles in her pram. It would be hard to say who fluttered the most as they greeted each other – Albert or Hortensia.
As they strode out along the pavement, one either side of Albert, Pilbeam and Appleby both felt very proud. Pilbeam was thinking how nice it was to have another friend, a new member of the family – Nuovo Alberto! Goodness knows what Appleby was thinking! Her thoughts were complicated, exciting and, naturally, selfish. She hung onto Albert’s left arm and chattered.
“You could have pretends just like us,” she said. “I know Soobie thinks we should try not to have so many pretends when you are here, but never mind him. He’s always a spoil sport.”
Albert smiled nervously, as well he might.
“You could pretend to be a doctor,” Appleby went on, “and come to cure Granpa’s gout.”
“I don’t think so somehow!” said Albert, wincing at the thought of Sir Magnus’s purple foot.
“Or you could pretend to be Pilbeam’s boyfriend.”
Pilbeam was irritated and embarrassed, but she managed to say lightly, “Don’t be silly. Albert probably already has a girlfriend. Your pretends get more foolish every day.”
Albert too felt embarrassed and taken on the raw.
“I did have a girlfriend,” he said. “We were going to be married. Then she went off and married somebody else. That’s why I went abroad. I spent all my savings on that holiday.”
Appleby let go of his arm and stood, startled, in front of him. Behind the butterfly sunglasses, her green eyes glowed.
“That’s what I told them all,” she said. “It’s exactly what I said you’d done. I am psychic!”
Pilbeam recovered her composure and said with a giggle, “Come off it, Appleby. It was a good guess. That’s all.”
“Well, you think what you like and I will think what I like,” said Appleby, every inch the fiery redhead. And Pilbeam, the dark lady, smiled at her indulgently. Their difference in age might be only one year but sometimes the gap in maturity was much greater.
“You could pretend to be our solicitor and come and make Granpa’s will. He would love that. I bet he would leave more to me than to anybody else,” said Appleby as they walked on.
“Shut up, Appleby!” said Pilbeam and Albert together, and there and then Albert felt like one of the family.
After the shopping they went home laden with groceries. It was a struggle to fit the frozen food into the tiny freezer compartment of the fridge, especially the chips.
“I’d better use some chips straightaway,” said Albert. “There’s not really enough room for all of them.”
Pilbeam and Appleby watched fascinated as Albert, the culinary expert, cooked himself a meal of beefburgers, baked beans and french fries. The gas cooker had to be lit with a match, being so old, but it still worked perfectly well. Albert sat and ate in the kitchen whilst the girls washed the pans and talked to him.
“Can you drive a car?” asked Appleby. She was thinking of all the ways they might be able to use his greater ability to get around the world.
“Yes,” said Albert, “but I haven’t got one. My last one packed up and I can’t afford a new one yet.”
He went on eating and thought regretfully that he should have bought a car instead of spending everything on the holiday.
“If you hadn’t spent all your savings on that holiday, you could have bought a car,” said Appleby tactlessly.
“That’s downright rude,” said Pilbeam. “What Albert does or doesn’t do is his own business.”
Pilbeam found herself remembering Albert’s first letter and the mention in it of Comus House. How could he be so out of funds when he had a house he could sell? If he sold it, he should easily be able to afford a car. And if the Mennyms really did need a
second home, Grandpa should buy it from him. That would be no more than fair.
14
The Family Conference
TULIP CAREFULLY DRAPED the counterpane over Magnus’s foot.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked peevishly. “It’s irritating.”
He pushed the foot out and tugged the counterpane away from it so that it was even possible to see the seam where it was attached to the white cloth that covered his leg.
Tulip gave him a look of severe determination. She pulled the cover over his foot again and said, “Leave it there. Your face is fine, your moustache is most distinguished, your mind is a mass of information, but your feet are definitely Kate’s early work. Albert can get used to everything else, but that foot sticking over the edge of the bed disconcerts him. You know it does.”
Sir Magnus gave her a look of offended superiority and uttered the pearl of wisdom that maintained that beauty was in the eye of the beholder.
“Sometimes,” said Tulip. “But you must keep that foot covered for the conference, and let’s have no more argument about it!”
In the next ten minutes they all trooped in and took their places. Albert and Soobie were the last to arrive.
Sir Magnus raised himself high on his pillows, cleared his throat most convincingly and addressed the room.
“This, as you all know, is a most solemn and serious occasion. All manner of things will be happening in the future and we must be prepared. Make no mistake about it, a house, even a house as old and venerable and well-built as this one, can be reduced to rubble. Albert Pond has been sent here to help us in this dire situation. So let us hear first what he has to say.”
He looked at Albert very sternly and said, “The floor is yours. You may speak.”
It was Albert’s turn to clear his throat, a real clearing of a real throat that felt completely choked. His dazed brown eyes, soulful as a spaniel’s, went from one to another. All of them, even the younger twins, were sitting tensely waiting. There was no fainting away this time – Tulip’s mesmeric crystal gaze saw to that.